


Montreal Metro

by espetrell



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH METRO ART, i can never be as good as metro art, there's french in this, with translations
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-05
Updated: 2013-08-05
Packaged: 2017-12-22 12:45:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/913385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/espetrell/pseuds/espetrell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grantaire and Enjolras become unlikely friends after meeting on a Montreal subway. Grantaire sucks at French and Enjolras sucks at English, but they get around it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Montreal Metro

**Author's Note:**

> OK, so, I did a fic, and I'm really not sure where to go from here, so I'd really appreciate you guys telling me if what I did is good and if you want to see more. 
> 
> All French sentences should have a translation in English if you put your mouse over them, so please tell me if that is not working!

Grantaire furrowed his brow, staring frustratedly at the Metro map on the station wall. He generally knew his way around the Montreal subway system fairly well, but halfway down the route from his classes at Concordia University to his apartment he had needed to exit the station to make a shopping run. It was a pretty regular occurrence for Grantaire to realize that he'd forgotten to bring all the pencils he'd need to a drawing and painting class or something similar. But it was frustrating when that happened in the short time period between classes, and since it was the first day of senior year Grantaire didn't want to antagonize the teacher just yet. So he had made the run to find a store that sold flash drives, and now found himself back in the metro station, wondering if making a transfer would save him some time.

He had just made the decision that his normal route would do the job when he was suddenly jostled from behind by someone trying to look at the map. Whipping around, he blurted, "Oh, sorry," just as a man behind him, presumably the one who had bumped into him, said, " _Pardonnez-moi_." Grantaire was slightly disappointed to hear that the frankly quite attractive man was a French speaker, but intrigued by his abnormal accent. It didn't sound Quebequois.

" _Vous êtes francais_?" Grantaire asked before he could stop himself. Though living in Montreal for a couple years should have made him a fluent speaker, Grantaire's French continued to be abysmal. You could get by on only English in day-to-day life, but initiating conversations with attractive French strangers was far above his league. The Frenchman's smirk made Grantaire regret ever saying anything. 

" _Ouais_ ," the man said, then paused apprehensively before continuing, "I... How can I go to UQAM from here?" His English was almost as stilted as Grantaire's French, but Grantaire decided to return the favor and not mention it. Instead he explained slowly, pointing at the stops as he named them, "We are at Saint-Laurent, so we go up one to Berri-UQAM. Not hard." 

"We?" asked the man, raising an eyebrow.

"I'm going there, too," Grantaire told him. Both of them would have to wait for the same train, so in an effort to do away with awkward silence, he asked, " _Comment t'appelles-tu_?"

He could only hope he'd said it correctly, but it seemed as though he was understood, because the man replied, "Enjolras. And you?"

"Grantaire," replied Grantaire. Silence fell for a moment. Grantaire considered pulling out his phone and pretending to text, but Enjolras turned and asked, "So you're a student?"

" _Oui_ ," Grantaire answered eagerly, seizing upon a conversation topic, " _J'etudie au--_ "

"You know," Enjolras broke in, "You can speak English. I will comprehend."

Grantaire smiled at the slight error. "Is my French that bad?" he joked. He didn't expect Enjolras to nod seriously.

"Um, I go to Concordia," Grantaire continued uneasily.

"Ah," Enjolras said, as if everything suddenly made sense to him now, "They teach in English there, no?"

"Yeah," Grantaire replied over the roar of the incoming train. It was theirs, and in the rush to find a spare space to squeeze into, Grantaire lost Enjolras in the crowd. A pity, but Grantaire reasoned that if they'd spoken any longer, he would certainly have made a fool of himself. It was better that their conversation ended there.

Except it didn't, because on the train the next day Grantaire felt a nudge at his shoulder and looked up to find Enjolras giving him a little grin. He was too surprised to greet him before the phone in Enjolras' hand began to ring. Enjolras immediately swung the phone up to his ear, hissed, " _Ferre! Pas maintenant!_ ", and hung up.

"Faire?" Grantaire asked in confusion. He knew that was the word for "to make" and could not fathom why you would say that into a phone. Enjolras chuckled and shook his head.

"Combeferre. My good friend," he explained, then stopped and furrowed his brow. " _Non._ Goodest?"

"Best," Grantaire corrected. When Enjolras' frown deepened in bafflement, he shrugged and said, "English is weird."

Enjolras rolled his eyes and continued, "Anyways. He is like a mother. He calls all the time."

Grantaire didn't know quite how to respond - he certainly didn't have any friends like that - but was saved from the necessity by Enjolras' sudden exclamation, "Ah! You are an artist?"

"What? Oh, yeah," Grantaire said, following Enjolras' gaze to the paint-spattered toolbox filled with art supplies in his hand, "That's what I'm learning at Concordia." After a pause in which a monotone voice told them which stop they were arriving at, he asked Enjolras, "What are you learning?"

" _Politique_ ," answered Enjolras with pride. Grantaire could not help a small amount of his derision of politics showing on his face, and Enjolras did not miss it.

"What is the problem with politics?" Enjolras asked sharply.

"Nothing wrong," Grantaire said loudly over the bustle and noise of the train pulling into the stop. "I just don't like getting involved. It's pointless."

Grantaire wasn't sure if Enjolras understood all those words - he certainly didn't know how to say them in French - but that didn't stop him from becoming indignant.

"Pointless! No-"

"Enjolras-"

"How could you-"

" _Enjolras_ , not _now_ , I have another train to catch!" Grantaire interrupted, already walking out the opening train doors as fast as he could without seeming overly rude.

"We will talk about this!" Enjolras called over the heads and noise of the crowds as he exited the train himself.

"Next time!" Grantaire yelled back. It was only when he'd gotten situated in the next train that he realized that there would now be a next time. He buried his head in his hands and sighed dramatically, but could only think to himself, _Better prepare your arguments in advance._

The next time they met (they always took the same train back from Saint-Laurent station to UQAM, as it turned out), they did continue their argument. They had hardly gotten really frothy about the ability of government to change society by the time they had to part, so they agreed to debate more the next time. And the next. By the time Grantaire found himself bookmarking a BBC article on his phone to show Enjolras on that day's train ride, he had to admit that it was becoming a habit.

"Enjolras, look," he finally said, cutting off Enjolras before he could begin a spiel, "This isn't working."

"What? No?" Enjolras said in surprise.

"Either you touch up your English or I touch up my French, because we can only talk about so much with this damn language barrier." So far, they had made do with what they and Google Translate could figure out. But it was next to impossible to get their phones to work long enough to look up more than a word or two, and it was beginning to be tiresome.

"Huh," Enjolras said to stall as he considered it. Finally, he answered, "I don't know how to say this in English."

"Ha!" Grantaire snorted. "Ironic. OK, say it in French."

" _Qu'est ce que je me m'embarquais_?" sighed Enjolras.

"...I lost you at _je_ ," Grantaire admitted.

"You live in a Francophone city!" Enjolras said, "You should learn French."

"But your English is better than my French," Grantaire groaned, "My French is terrible."

"What if I teach you French and you teach me English?" Enjolras asked. "As a... compromise?"

"Yeah," Grantaire said slowly, "Sure."

" _D'ac_ !" Enjolras said, with a grin that dared Grantaire to ask what that meant. Grantaire didn't take the bait.


End file.
